Dark themes are becoming more popular than ever. You can turn on dark themes for the apps and online versions of the of Twitter, Outlook, and others. Microsoft introduced a dark theme for Windows 10 several versions back, and now, with Windows 10 1809 you can set up a dark mode for File Explorer. The new Dark theme was first introduced with Insider preview build 17666 and will be available to everyone when the next feature update is released this fall.

Enable Dark Mode for File Explorer

To enable the File Explorer dark theme, head to Settings > Personalization > Colors. Then scroll down in the right column to the More options section and choose Dark for the “Choose your default app mode” option.

That’s it. Close out of Settings and launch File Explorer and you will see the new look.

One thing you can do to make it look more unique is to change the Accent Colors. In the Color section, you will have a variety of different colors you can choose. If you just want Windows to pick it for you, just leave the “Automatically pick an accent color for my background” box checked.

If you’re not satisfied with the default color options, you can go in and use a custom color that gives you a lot more options.

While it’s the same way you enable the Dark theme on Windows 10, unless you’re running 1809 or above, File Explorer doesn’t change with it. This is a good start at getting a more unified color scheme throughout the OS. While it’s a good step, it could be better. For example, Apple does it’s dark theme on macOS Mojave really well. With the flip of a switch, everything turns to that mode and you don’t need to configure apps individually. And it has a more aesthetic look overall in my opinion. Still, this is a step in the right direction and Microsoft will undoubtedly continue to make tweaks and changes to it.